Here's my list and review of classic movies, mostly silent ones from the 1920s.
In no particular order.
---
:: Häxan - 1922 - Sweden and Denmark - Benjamin Christensen ::.
A fantastic horror-documentary on witches and the kind of thinking that
makes men create them. It takes you on a journey through middle-ages
folklore, forcing you to approach the topic from their angle, to then
throw you back in reality by taking distance and realizing the mass
psychosis.
---
:: The Phantom Carriage - 1921 - Sweden - Victor Sjöström ::.
A Scrooge-, or Christmas-Carol-like story twisted to its horror
limits. The Swedish cinema of the time did a good job at touching fear,
not through rough gore, but through catharsis and existentialism. There's
also a hint of inspiration from German expressionism of the time.
---
:: The Phantom of the Opera - 1925 - USA - Rupert Julian ::.
The classic story based on the French novel. The American twist on it
gave it a raw aspect, focusing on the link between physical deformity
and evilness. When watching it you are both stretched between having to
sympathize with the Erik, the phantom, being shocked by how people treat
him, and also guided by the mob that wants revenge for the senseless
murder of their friends. "If I am the phantom, it is because man's hatred
has made me so."
---
:: The Man Who Laughs - 1928 - USA/Germany - Paul Leni ::.
As with The Phantom of the Opera, this movie is based on the French novel
by Victor Hugo. Also, similarly, it focuses on our biases, our inherent
animal disgust and judgement of appearances. The movie makes you become
Gwynplaine, the disfigured man, and catapults you in this unfair world
where your worst attribute is also your bread-winning attribute, lost
between faith and love. This is one of my favorite take on the subject,
a must-watch!
---
:: Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror - 1922 - Germany - F. W. Murnau ::.
A classic remake of the 1897 novel Dracula. The film captures the feeling
of impending doom, the plague in an anthropomorphic form. It depicts what
carelessness brings with it, joyous days soon being replaced by horror,
and only a worthy sacrifice can balance the scale. We're reminded of
this, especially during the covid-19 pandemic. The setup is classic but
the acting in some part could've been better.
---
:: Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans - 1927 - USA - F. W. Murnau ::.
This story, or song, is a hidden treasure of emotions, a roller-coaster
trip over the human experience where even the protagonists don't seem
to be in control. The adventure is clearly defined and at each step
we're visiting the extreme version of a vice or virtue. At time, we are
taken aback by what is happening, were driven into the story to act for
the characters, as they appear only as toys played by fate. Everything
collapses and rebuilds itself in the end, a "need for closure" realized
to perfection.
---
:: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari - 1920 - Germany - Robert Wiene, Hans Janowitz, Carl Mayer ::.
A story of inception and perception. It confuses the senses through a
well-written narrative and decors that are dizzying and sharp. Nothing
makes sense until the end, finally guiding the viewers through the last
scene and leaving them perplexed by their own subconscious.
---
:: Battleship Potemkin - 1925 - URSS - Sergei Eisenstein ::.
This depiction of the Russian mutiny of 1905 carries with it a heavy
message, one of hope, of humanness, of fairness, and of a sense of
community. It is executed, like a play, in five acts, each building on
top of one another and with it the intensity of the action. Every scene
galvanizes us, a true masterpiece.
---
:: Nanook of the North - 1922 - USA/Canada - Robert J. Flaherty ::.
This documentary on the life of Inuits in the Canadian Arctic offers a
lens into their traditional ways of life. Some have argued that during the
filming the Inuits were already being influenced by the "Western" ways,
but I'd retort that it still does justice to what ancestral techniques
they passed down. From igloo building, to hunting, to raising a family
in this harsh environment, we are in awe at humanity and how it adapts
to every circumstances.
---
:: The Cocoanuts - 1929 - USA - Robert Florey, Joseph Santley ::.
:: Sherlock Jr. - 1924 - USA - Buster Keaton ::.
:: Our Hospitality - 1923 - USA - Buster Keaton, John G. Blystone ::.
:: The Gold Rush - 1925 - USA - Charlie Chaplin ::.
Personally, I'm not a fan of the slapstick-like American comedy of the
mid-20s. They're fun to watch but quickly lose their appeal.
---
:: Greed - 1924 - USA/Austria - Erich von Stroheim ::.
A movie that will disturb you in your inner core. The awkwardness and
unease never let go, the sort of clumsiness of Napoleon Dynamite mixed
with a Swedish sense of horror. The set-up is a convoluted mesh of
non-sense, raw animalistic feelings, disgust, and the environment or
survival taking over logic. Definitely, a good watch!
---
:: La Fée aux Choux - 1896 - France - Alice Guy-Blaché ::.
One of the first movie to take the viewer on a dream journey, show the
possibility of cinema to bring fairy tales to life.
---
:: Le Voyage dans la Lune - 1902 - France - Georges Méliès ::.
Similar to the Fée aux Choux, this is a movie that materializes
imagination into reality. The author being an illusionist has been able
to create the montage and impressive scenes. The comedic aspects make
it reflect on colonial times, along with the theatrical dressing and
bickering of men that think highly of themselves.
---
:: A Page of Madness 狂った一頁 - 1926 - Japan - Teinosuke Kinugasa ::.
It is a treasure to observe movies as an art movement from pre-WWII era
Japan. From the Shinkankakuha school, this magnificent artwork achieves
its goal to perfection: Bringing the world of dreams, the unsaid, the
hidden, in front of us. It joins the absurdity and bitterness of humanity,
the madness in us, both metaphorical and concrete, into a dance that
captures us from the first image to the last. The Shinkankakuha artists
are the Japanese mental brothers of the French, Spanish, and Catalonian
surrealists.
---
:: Soviet Toys - 1924 - URSS - Dziga Vertov ::.
The first animated movie from the URSS, a chef d'œuvre from the artist
Dziga Vertov, which also made A Man With a Movie Camera. The movie
holds both a political message and a moral one. It is a caricature that
transforms and morphs itself, capturing your empathy. Maybe there's a
hint of post-modernism/surrealism/shinkankakuha in there?
---
:: A Man with a Movie Camera - 1929 - URSS - Dziga Vertov ::.
This film is one of the most captivating I've ever had the pleasure
to watch. Yet, its simplicity strikes us, the purity and unprocessed
bits of human life. It is filmed as a pseudo-experimental-documentary,
but the juxtaposition, the arrangement of the frames, along with the
different musical interpretations from later bands syncing with the
rhythm, absorbs you on this exploration. Indirectly, we are compelled to
build our own narrative that transcends it, to compose a poetic meaning
out of what we see. A superb creation, a must-watch.
I have to admit the movie was hard to follow with no subtitles and
translation barely working but even through that the emotions pierced
through. This is a movie about the backside of life, dragging us into the
abyss of dark thoughts, a vicious cycle. The despair seeps in our veins.
---
:: Destiny - 1921 - Germany - Fritz Lang ::.
Similar to The Phantom Carriage of the same year, this is a story
imbued with oriental and occidental folktales. Fritz Lang make us travel
the world and empathize with human nature, but still somehow feel the
dreaded fate, or destiny. The characters are puppets, yet the protagonist
makes a deliberate choice on it. A hidden Sisyphus meaning within it,
an existentialist question. It's funny that critics found that movie
"not German enough".
---
:: Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler - 1922 - Germany - Fritz Lang ::.
An narrative of the anti-hero, someone that is a representation of
the corruption and carnality of society. The gamblers is only driven
by the joy that manipulating others give, that destroying other's life
can procure. This is in stark contrast with Destiny 1921 where nobody
has control of the situation, the opposite is depicted as evil. Yet,
the viewer connects with the miscreant, we're also blissfully loving the
'competency porn' happening — reality bends to the will of Dr.Mabuse.
---
:: Das Testament des Dr Mabuse - 1933 - Germany - Fritz Lang ::.
The follow up on der Spieler. We're brought in a world of conspiracy,
where a mischievous evil persona manipulates events to his will,
and from a distance. All cunningly to pass the flame of the "empire
of crime". People are drawn to this malice, not because they want to,
but because of their needs.
---
:: The Thousand Eyes of Dr Mabuse - 1960 - Germany - Fritz Lang ::.
The final movie in the series of the Dr.Mabuse. As captivating as the
others but ends dramatically too soon.
---
:: Dir Nibelungen - 1924 - Germany - Fritz Lang ::.
A fantasy film in two parts "Siegfried" and "Kriemhild's Revenge". It
definitely keeps true to Lang's signature, namely the fight over destiny,
death, and reality. In the first part, we're presented with a legendary
figure, Siegfried the magnificent. The person incarnates an immovable
object, someone that is the antithesis of Dr.Mabuse, a good fellow that
achieves his goal through sheer force and ambition, not through mental
manipulative techniques. Yet, this figure disrupt the balance, just
like Dr.Mabuse, and jealousy ensues. Someone wants to destroy him at all
costs, and this is what happens: the invincible Siegfried falls and with
him his vision of the world. In the second part, Kriemhild's Revenge,
Siegfried's wife goes all the way to avenge her husband, to rectify an
affront. The rage consumes her, she is obsessed with it, nothing makes
sense but the revenge. However, each person of the stories has ties to
one another, oath that cannot be broken, pictured as stronger than family
ties. The vengeance goes beyond all that and destroys the lives of many,
all until everything is burned down and she is finally satiated. Balance
is restored.
---
:: Metropolis - 1927 - Germany - Fritz Lang, Thea von Harbou ::.
Metropolis is one of those movies that joins so many nuances and subjects
that it keeps you thinking about it for days. It presents a futuristic
scene, similar to 1984 or A Brave New World, but preceding them by
almost 20 years. The Lang's theme of destiny is ever present, mixed with
a future where humanity is put in question by machines, both physical
and metaphorically embodied through men working in factories, and mixed
with a religious tone and class struggles. The subtle cinematic effects
in the movie are sublime, it's instantly memorable. I highly recommend it!
---
:: M - 1931 - Germany - Fritz Lang, Thea von Harbou ::.
M is a masterpiece that grabs you from the first image. The viewer's
feelings are stretched and twisted in different situations, from laughter,
to drama, to fear, to vengeance, to empathy. As with Metropolis 1924,
we are in a dichotomy, a clash, this time one between government
institutions and mafioso as the backbone. We're seeing a tense social
issue, questioning the role of legislations, whether we're falling into
anarchy, the balance between the different faction in society. Who should
bring justice, is mob justice good justice? What happens when the rule
of law fall short for bureaucracy, theatre and ceremonies. What's the
role of government in a falling situation, surveillance, parenting,
mental illness. So many intricate subjects interwoven in this hectic
and captivating story. I highly recommend it!
---
:: 8½ - 1963 - Italy - Federico Fellini ::.
A surrealist film surrounding both a writer's block and his issues
with the conception of the muse. The muse can be seen throughout the
womanizing relationships that the main character has, and his inability
to not fantasize about them, always looking for the ideal muse that will
satiate the thirst for perfection.
---
:: Un Chien Andalou - 1929 - French/Spain - Luis Buñuel,Salvador Dalí ::.
A surrealist short film directed by two genius of that movement. With
surrealism you have to let go, accept being swayed by the movie. If it
starts to feel like a dream, then you've learned to watched surrealism,
the sort of automatic writing and associations that can only make sense
in the eye of the viewer. In Un Chien Andalou, we see raw human love,
from the sense to the head, along imageries of pain, pursuits of life.
---
:: Destino - 2003 - USA/Spain - Dominique Monféry,Salvador Dalí,John Hench,Roy E. Disney ::.
A surrealist joint cooperation between Disney studio artist Hench and
Dalí. The short-movie is visually pleasing and enchanting, your mind goes
on a ballet with it. However, it feels toned down, it doesn't have the
piquant and emotional or mental outburst that true surrealism can trigger.
A dadaist/surrealist short that is stripped down to the essential. What
is left are words, which only have meanings in their interpretation,
rotating on itself, ourselves rotating on the wheel, lost.
A dadaist short that pierces us with its mechanical edges. We are
assimilated into the reflections and snapshots of a dance we execute. As
with anything dada, we cannot help but feel the absurdity of this,
the non-sense in objects and the ballet we've started with them.
---
:: L'Étoile de Mer - 1928 - France - Man Ray ::.
A short surrealist masterpiece, perfectly smothering us in the dream-like
atmosphere. We do not understand what we feel when watching it, yet we
still have a strong emotional response. The music oriental tone only
accentuate the mental tension, and we can't let go. The overall feeling
of resentment, past memories, and melancholic nostalgia: bitter sweet
"saudade".
---
:: Emak Bakia - 1926 - France - Man Ray ::.
A true cinépoème, a prose via images. We're transported in this
constant struggle against form, determination, and time. Incessant,
chaotic, piercing.
---
:: The Life and Death of 9413 a Hollywood Extra - 1928 - USA - Robert Florey, Slavko Vorkapich ::.
A metaphorical criticism of the USA rising new lifestyle. Torn between
the attraction to materials, capitals, and on another side being forced
to sell one-self to attain it, living in denial, hidden behind masks
that compete against one another. Meanwhile, in this fight, we are but
anonymous temporal animals.
---
:: Entr'acte - 1924 - France - René Clair ::.
A dadaist piece that rotates around the topic of "in-between", the seasons
and cyclical aspects, discontinuations. We admire the events, in order,
in reverse, fast, slow, taking them from all angles. The clashes are
omnipresent, sense is at risk. To top it off, we get a sort of breaking
the fourth wall in the end, turning it all into a fantastical game played
by the camera magician.
---
:: Les Mystères du Château du Dé - 1929 - France - Man Ray ::.
I love that dadaist piece. It immerses us in the conquest of time,
against nature, the human condition of constant decay, meanwhile we try
to make order but randomness and life keeps going. Definitely recommended.
---
:: La Coquille et le clergyman - 1928 - France - Germaine Dulac ::.
A surrealist movie that takes us in an illusion, a dream of animalistic
instincts that grind against civility and conformity. We're also
facing the disappointment of expectation, when we feel like something
is supposed to be rightfully ours based on invented notions of work and
commitment. Yet the struggle continues, and we lie to ourselves.
---
:: L'Age D'Or - 1930 - France - Luis Bruñel ::.
A surrealist movie about man's repressed feelings and actions
suddenly brought into the world, along with social concepts and
conquests such as colonialism and a sense of superiority from this
upper-classiness. Everything seems to stand in the way of that, the
thread keeps up until the end. Finally, remorse ensues and the character
is devastated by their vision of what society's moral should be, based
on religious ideals, all dictated from the "bearded men" at the top.
---
:: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse - 1921 - USA - Rex Ingram ::.
In my opinion, this is a botched movie. The story is muddied in
unnecessary preamble about tango and family drama but without depth.
---
:: Godzilla ゴジラ - 1954 - Japan - Ishirō Honda ::.
The original godzilla movie. It is filled with a sort of religious
sense of mankind against or in harmony with nature. The clash between
technological advancement and destruction of the environment. It is
especially striking and relevant that godzilla emerges from the ocean
and has been awoken by nuclear tests.
---
:: Casablanca - 1942 - USA/Morocco - Michael Curtiz ::.
Casablanca is a romance movie, at first glance displays a love triangle
between two persons who fell for one another while the husband of the
woman was presumed dead in a concentration camp. It turns out that when
leaving after the invasion of Paris, the woman never joins her lover,
and instead discovers her husband was faking his death to avoid the
gestapo and plan a revolution. The characters then all find themselves
in Casablanca, Morocco, at the time a French colony, and thus considered
French soil. Rick, the past lover manages an American café and somehow
his past lover and her husband find themselves in Casablanca, the place
where everyone goes to wait to jump on a plane to Lisbon which will take
them on a path to the USA, the land of "freedom" and "dreams", which is
ironic in today's perfective but it was what the USA represented.
Over the movie the theme of war and hope are omnipresent, along with
patriotism, we constantly find hints and images of that, through la
Marseillaise that is played as a theme and inside jokes against the Nazis.
The café that Rick manages, and all of Casablanca is portrayed as a
purgatory, a "hotel california", it's not Casablanca that is emphasized
but the situation, the constant wait to leave the place. Most of the
scenes take place in the café, a place where these refugees gather, a
representation of the in-between. Everyone seems to only drink champagne,
a drink of celebration, seemingly to the fact they're still alive.
Rick's character is multi-faceted, his name changes at different time
to show his evolution and how different people perceive him. While once
a passionate person, in Paris, now he is disassociated, in appearance
selfish. His wittiness also transpires everywhere, through a self-centered
but also somewhat moral aspect. He always does the thing you'd expect,
but not what you'd expect from the main character of a film. Yet this
character is able to point the irony in other characters that aren't open
to their own selfishness, but instead that try to show their self-centered
view as some sort of bigger moral duties, it seems that Rick is able to
see through that, but accepts the human situation.
A surrealist, acid Western, movie packed with oriental and occidental
symbolisms. Jodorowsky takes us on a travel to discover ourselves and
the truth of our world, removing layers, one by one, and through language
and images assault our senses. We're left questioning if truth, or light,
or progress, is worth it.
Similar with El Topo and the vibe that Jodorowsky gives, this is a
surrealist story in the form of a quest for enlightenment, also full of
symbolisms. The visuals are polished, invading our mind with concepts
and conflicting positions. We are presented with multiple sides of human
nature, of spirituality, of rough reality and how to connect back to
it. The human question.
---
:: La danza de la realidad - 2013 - Chile/France - Alejandro Jodorowsky ::.
Confronted with your inane self, with life. You can't escape it,
our eyes can't be closed. The cycle of suffering and relief that
never ends. Prisoner of flesh, and free. Faces becomes reflections of
our feelings, the heart is exposes to the air, reality as an abrasive
substance, cruel, but truth as the precious revelation, yet in surrealism
and dreams we can find meaning. The philosophers offering an opening to
morph what we see into something less raw. A powerful movie.
---
:: Twelve Angry Men - 1954 - USA - Reginald Rose ::.
A mind bending movie. Posing a problem in all its perspectives, dicing
it to pieces, making you take all positions possibles. It makes you
reconsider your assumptions.
---
:: Road to The Stars (Der Weg Zu Den Stermen/Doroga k zviozdam) - 1950 - USSR - Pavel Klushantsev/Boris Lyapunov ::.
Scientifically accurate, wondefully captivating way of explaining
science. You get caught in the race to the moon, the race to the stars,
you start yearning for knowledge, things fit together and make sense.
---
:: Don Quixote (Don Kikhot) - 1957 - USSR - Grigori Kozintsev ::.
An exceptionally well-executed performance of the Don Quixote de La
Mancha. It truly captures the essence of the book, transporting you in
the universe, the madness of imagination of the character, empathizing
with his wish for a better world. It reminds us of today's "competence
porn", of young people being prisoners of the virtual space, from video
games to social media. Yet, you can't help but feel a pang in your heart
when the books of Don Quixote burn in front of him, killing him at the
same time, but keeping his soul within the story of his life, a meta
story about being consumed by fiction and becoming fiction yourself.
---
:: Salt for Svanetia - 1930 - USSR - Mikhail Kalatozov ::.
In a similar vibe to Nanook of the North, we dicover people living
in remote lands and their ingenious ways to get around. A strickingly
insightful and beautiful documentary, filmed in a poignant way.
---
:: Earth - 1930 - USSR - Alexander Dovzhenko ::.
Generational clash, the young and new defying traditions. The march of
progress that is unstoppable. The fascination with what human capabilities
can achieve.
---
:: Long Day's Journey into Night 地球最後的夜晚 - 2018 - China - Bi Gan ::.
An experimental film that is dizzying. I can describe it as a wild
feverish dream of surrealism. Meanings are spread through the frames,
taking the form of mementos and sentences that reemerges. We're brought
through memories as sequences and snapshot of times, remembering and
yearning the past, yet trying to move on.
---
:: People on Sunday Menschen am Sonntag - 1930 - Germany - Moriz Seeler ::.
A new take on the mundane, the philosophy of the everyday life. This
pseudo-documentary offers a glimpse in the past.
A movie about the life in the trenches, the classic war. Unfortunately,
it makes you think that things would take a widely different turn today.
---
:: Solaris Солярис - 1972 - USSR - Andrei Tarkovsky ::.
A sci-fi story about the contact with another form of intelligence,
which is the mirror of our deepest mind.
---
:: Stalker - 1979 - URSS - Andrei Tarkovsky ::.
A movie that reverberate and echoes of the aching of living, the paradoxes
that it implies. What are dreams, where do they lead, why pursue them. Is
the adventure what matters and not what's at the end of the tunnel?
---
:: All - 1902 and beyond - Spain/France - Segundo de Chomón ::.
Imagine a world before what we currently consider "modernity", before
the oil industry, where traveling was an excursion, before computers and
social media, before globalization, when Thomas Edison was stil alive
and electricity made its debut, before any world wars. In that world, de
Chomón was an illusionist, using films as a form of magic show, extending
the limit of what is possible. A must watch collection of shorts.
---
:: Vertigo - 1958 - USA - Alfred Hitchcock ::.
A twister thriller that takes 3/4 of the movie to build up, and then
explodes in a 15min mind-bending ending.
---
:: The Birds - 1963 - USA - Alfred Hitchcock ::.
The conceptual framework of this piece is the base of so many of today's
movies. An impending doom and gloom that is omnipresent and approaching,
along with people's social fabric evaporating and all that it implies.
---
:: La Guerre Des Boutons - 1962 - France - Yves Robert ::.
What is it like to be young and careless, hope for freedom and slowly
learn what it means to live in society, to be part of something
greater than oneself, a nation with laws, respect, and equality. Even
if learning this is through "fake" violent play, often portrayed with
bravado music and distanced camera shot showing the powerfulness and
craziness of war, that is often attenuated and contrasted with moments
of tenderness and oxymoron, with the camera accentuating the playful
nature of the interaction. Realizations that you are always part of it,
even with the recurrent motif of the movie "if I had known I wouldn't
have come". The movie beautiful interfaces the world of childhood and
adulthood by gradually transitioning in the narrative, until the worse
is done by the protagonist, and the adults are portrayed with similar
traits. Goes to say, we're all humans after all, with our flaws.
We also see the paternal and maternal figures on both ages, in childhood
with the brothers Lebrac and Gibus, with Lebrac's protege's Marie Tintin,
and in adulthood with the interactions of the parents.
---
:: The Seventh Seal - 1957 - Sweden - Ingmar Bergman ::.
Watching this feels like traveling, or moving along in a museum of
medieval art. Everything is carefully placed to have its significance
and reflects a middle age theme that went along with the plague. We're
especially taken aback by the conundrum of the two faces of reality:
life and death, and it's continuity.
---
:: Persona - 1966 - Sweden - Ingmar Bergman ::.
Persona is a chef d'œuvre, as they say, the Mount Everest of cinematic
analysis. In appearance it is an avant-garde psychological drama with
hints of psychological horror. The story of Alma, a nurse, and her
patient, a well-known actress called Elisabet that suddenly stopped
speaking after a stage appearance, for fear of laughing instead of
rehearsing, and other reasons that are unknown.
The enigma then unfolds into 3 places the hospital, the cottage, and the
beach. The nurse, unwillingly taking the initiative to cure, at all
cost, the ailment of the actress. Furthermore, the two characters slowly
merge into one another, the actress a silent mask of the nurse, a sort
of Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde situation, of secrecy vs reality.
In a way, the films comments on itself as it plays, the head of nurses
directly speaking what's in the mind of the others.
There's a play around the concept of having an actress be the mask of
the other, always studying the movements of the nurse, a mask that only
has failure in its sleeps, but that never truly sleeps and drive the
other crazy.
All along the movie is the subject of deep horror or realization through
images such as the crucifixion, a spider, and the killing of a lamb,
be it sacrifice, victimhood or the end of innocence. A hidden depth,
such as self-immolation and destruction.
In the movie there is almost no one talking but the nurse, we live
the experience through her, yet the other is omnipresent, looking, and
always with her laughing smile, studying the mistakes, but invisible
and yet powerful. The camera follows along at eye-level, intimate with
the character, never above or under, but following closely the theatre
unfolding in uncomfortable long shots. Halfway through the movie the
real chaos happens, and the roles swap, the nurse feels like her life
is merging with the Elisabet. This is received with violent emotions
and actions. The anger bursts and she wants to hurt Elisabet just like
she would like to hurt herself. It starts with broken glass, the mirror
of the self. When Alma tells Elisabet that she is a terrible person,
Elisabet runs away, but Alma chases her for forgiveness, and later looks
at a picture of the Jews arrested in the Warsaw Ghetto, somehow feeling
the emotions in the eyes of the people. Are we diseased individuals to
hurt ourselves like this?
The words of the nurse don't make much sense anymore, they get mixed up,
as if they were coming from nowhere, her individuality dissolving.
A dream-like scene happens where the husband of Elisabet visits
and confuses Alma for her, and Elisabet keeps starring at them, as if
invisible and non-existent. It's uncomfortable, and expresses the true
mask, a sense of being out-of-place, of playing a role and wanting to
run away from your skin. Similar scenes are spread across the movie,
with a hint of self-hatred, regret, and wanting to change the past.
We're immersed in Alma's world through the sound of the waterphone and
scratches, horror movie instruments. Long troubling shots that let us
reflect on what the characters are feeling. And the scene where Alma
dictates and criticizes Elisabet's life and she frown, played twice and
swapping faces, slowly zooming in on their emotions.
The sacrifice is then offered to Elisabet, like a vampire, she
consumes the blood of Alma, and now she is soothed and disappears as if
non-existent. The nurse can then continue her life, her mask being put
to the side for a while.
Surprisingly, there are almost no manly figures in the movie, only the
husband as a phantom-like figure, and the supposedly son of Elisabet
that appears in the intro and outro.
The movie ends on that note, the young boy seeing the blurry image of
two women that merge together: "giving birth to something without wanting
to, just for its image", and the child resulting from this action itself
looking at their image.
---
:: Hedgehog in the Fog - 1975 - URSS - Yuri Norstein ::.
An animated childhood tale that feels more like a horror story. The work
on the ambience, sound, and effects is mind blowing.
---
:: La Grande Bouffe - 1972 - France/Italy - Marco Ferreri ::.
Can there be too much of something good? Definitely, when you have
everything that the animal in you needs, and you still ask for more, you
become carnal of instincts. Yet, you are unfulfilled, but this is the
only thing you can find to satisfy you, an orgy of sensations leading
to death and making you want death, escapism of reality. The mother
figure is omnipresent all over the movie, accompanying the childish
creatures, each representing certain crass but wealthy of society (legal,
entertainment, travel, food) towards their destiny, with all the vices
and carnal nihilistic impulses. An absurd ballet of consumer culture,
in which only a single imminent jingle plays to make us uncomfortable.
---
:: Soylent Green - 1973 - USA - Richard Fleischer ::.
A dystopian tale of human nature that takes us into a future of scarcity,
overpopulation, pollution, chaos, and distrust. We're faced with two
parts of this society, the secretive and pristine elites, living in
high and bright worlds, viewing the world as objects to their desire,
as encompassed by beautiful women being viewed as "furniture", and
controlling the masses as if they were beasts. Meanwhile, the lowly
mortals, living in the greenish hue of the pollution, overcrowded and dim
apartments, and subject to daily curfew. In contrast with the above two,
we're faced with the past, that percolates through the older generation,
that is dreaming of the past world, but feeling an intense guilt about
the actions that led to the current situation. It's this very generation
that serves as fuel, literally food, for the masses of the new world,
a religious-like experience of transubstantiation. The movie uses the
narrative of the police detective, in a thriller-style, to uncover the
different facets of this society, a bridge figure that can navigate in
between cracks.
All along the movie, frames emphasize and zoom on food: the subjective
experience against the sustenance aspect. It also achieves the same
regarding the concept of space, living space, crowded space almost
animalistic, vs freedom, brightness, legerity, pristine, etc.. The ending
words of the protagonist puts all this in perspective, comparing the
people as cattle for their meat. One can definitely extract the clear
alarm message behind the movie, a wake up call to human stupidity.
---
:: La Planete Sauvage - 1973 - France/Czech - René Laloux ::.
An hypnotic animated movie about human hood and its place. Every frame
is hand-drawn in a style similar to Dali's surrealism, we feel uncanny
at the strangeness of the world described, humans only an infinitely
small part of it. The music is also dizzying, an ambiance of awe sets
in. Since humans are in the background, the higher beings are instead
the rulers of this world, the ones that actually understand it. Humans
are only insects or toys, and we see everything from this perspectives.
The film puts the two creatures face to face, the higher being emphasizes
living in sync with their organic world, meditating, and even merging with
their environment, procreating through a dance of statues. Meanwhile,
humans are enticed by learning, all rotting knowledge and tools, and
practical structural things.
Even though the story is told from the first person narrative, the main
character quickly disappears and everything seems more like a subjective
documentary.
---
:: Taxi driver - 1976 - USA - Martin Scorsese ::.
This movie directly gives you a malaise, and does everything to keep
you in this dream-like state of discomfort, be it through the dizziness
of the camera angles, the slobbering and fluffy continuous jazz piece,
or the recurrent scenes where everything seems redundants and passing
without our awareness. We're bound to the feeling of being lost and
hopeless just like the main character that mainly feels it through his
insomnia which then translates into pranoia, voyeurism, and others. The
world passes him by, and he observes it, deeply wanting to attach himself
to it, find meaning, to them realize the corruption and decadence he
has been noticing has encroached on him too.
He will want to rescue and fix the dirtiness, both in the decaying city
and in him. After an existential crisis scene, which clashes the world
of the day where corruption is more hidden and blinding to the sight,
and the world of the night where the scums get out. The characters fails
the attempt at being an antihero, but then finds justice and meaning by
rectifying some things in the world of the night.
---
:: The Night Digger - 1971 - UK - Alastair Reid ::.
A horror/thriller fable, going from a light, almost ridicule situation,
to a more deeper meaning. This is achieved through a tempo change halfway
across the movie. One one side, we see a woman that has lost the light
and youth, so-called spinster or old maid, trading it for care but that
craves for vivality and freedom. On the other side, we see a man that
feels defficient, shunned since childhood about his sexual abilities,
and has become a deviant, a murderer of anyone he lusts, instantly
represented and captured by his motorcycle.
The movie carries a metaphor for the personal trauma that are often
relived within a relationship, from love avoidance to love addicts. The
disease of each others intermingle and ruin the relationhips. On one
side it literally kills it, a sort of Oedipus tale. Each facial
expression, each torturous feeling is captured closely by the camera.
Once the two characters find each others and fill their holes, the time
slowly compresses, changing from the chaotic and cramped dusty brown and
gray colors, to more picturesque scenes, pastel colors and empty fields
of the country side. Yet, the patterns always reemerged if not truly
healed. One became a motherly figure and the others the representation
of vigor and temerity, but what actually happens is a theatre of issues
and disfunctional people trying to make a relationhip by destroying
one another.
---
.. more incoming, I got a whole list, get ready!
I'll be slowy adding my personal review of them, but so far here's
what I watched (but might not have enjoyed, keep looking for when I add
the review).
---
Some Newer Movies Reviews (after 1980s)
---
:: Naked Lunch - 1991 - USA - David Cronenberg ::.
This film deals with addiction, hallucination, the need to belong and be
accepted for what we do, and yet not finding it and getting stuck. The
non-acceptance of our sexual identity.
---
:: Encounters at the End of the World - 2007 - USA/Antarctica - Werner Herzog ::.
A mesmerizing documentary about Antarctica and the spirits it
captures. Its story is told through the characters that find themselves
on one of the most remote places, away from civilization, yet bound by
the same dream and convictions. Each of them with their stories, which
Herzog wistfully is able to capture through a series of well picked
questions. All of this is accompanied by the grandiosity of the place,
yet humbling. Everything is a spectacle of the senses, almost religious.
A film that portrays another view on personal intimacy, a voyeurish
one, but one that shows the beauty in the small everyday affairs,
the ordinary. It also deals with living through the look of others,
and then finally knowing ourselves and blooming. The narrator itself
is a curious being, and the mise-en-scene and coloring of frames adds
a vertigo effect to the whole mix.
---
:: Stranger Than Fiction - 2006 - USA - Marc Forster/Zach Helm ::.
A twist on a Truman Show story with Dark City. But sort of breaking an
imaginary fourth wall with the narrative writer. It deals mainly with
the concept of fate, yet when this fate is accepted the ending goes
toward a Deus Ex Machina.
---
:: Under The Silver Lake - 2018 - USA - David Robert Mitchell ::.
Are we only pieces in a chess game? That's the recurrent theme of this
piece. Delving into our carnal and animalistic nature with the recurrent
leitmotif of dogs. We're overwhelmed with the inescapability of human
nature, from raw desires such as sex. Yet, we hope that there's something
more, something deeper, and this crescendo of hope clashes with reality:
we're all but dumb apes. Should we embrace it?
---
:: Eraser Head - 1977 - USA - David Lynch ::.
On the surface this is a horror about an apocalyptic industrial world in
which diseased creatures breed humans who confusingly think they are their
offspring. Yet, the rhetoric goes deeper, it portrays industrialization,
where the individual is only a tiny piece of, uncomfortable in this
environment, displayed by the long distance shot of single persons
traveling the world, of windows all closed shot to the world, and zooms
on industrial equipments, zooms from darkness to light but often only to
darkness and dirt, and there is only "warmth" given through radiators
in these hermetic rooms. The whole piece is filmed in black and white,
playing with shadows, and mostly a sentiment of being out of place. The
piece also touches creation and procreation, in a world devoid of
humanity, the character of Henry is sort of doomed to create machines
and monsters, nothing in between. This is portrayed through the constant
repetition of the spermatozoon that seems to frighten him, even in his
dream, women are seen as monsters, yet he can't help but seek them, until
in one of his dream his head is cut off, and nothing is found in it but
a machine that makes pencils. The same dream portrays a girl dancing on a
show, lights on her, and "attraction" as the slithery reproductive seeds
spills on her. His child, is sick, monstrous, and also empty of flesh,
as is shown through one of the last scene where he kills it. The films
ends with him embracing his horrible dream girl, in the light of the
show, embracing the horrible nature of this industrious world where no
real human is there.
---
:: Blue Velvet - 1986 - USA - David Lynch ::.
Blue Velvet is a pure experience of the anti-hero narrative and
characters. The movie's main theme is a masochistic curiosity, a passion
for looking under the cover and be tempted by life, sex, family, and
society. In that setup, nobody is perfect, all characters have their
flaws, are unclean, lying and living through false expectations of each
others, in a sort of chaotic dance where everyone constantly hurts. The
abuse, temptation of abuse, and repetition of it is omnipresent, the
characters almost laugh at themselves by portraying and talking of their
own troubles of insanity.
The use of light and darkness adds to this equation, the day is more
inquisitive and accompanied by the dream of the birds that the girl
mentions, a will to find some good in the complications of the
world. Meanwhile, the dark setup is where the rampant corrupted society
hides, literally represented by the curtain that flows in a manner
that says: "I fear that someone will find out what I'm doing, I'm
ashamed". The paranoid stairs are the path to dark sins of the underworld
and always filmed from above, we're accomplice in the perverted
voyeurism. Always the anticipation, amplified by a leitmotif music that
is drowsy, almost hurting.
This dark world is also represented by insects all along the movie,
from the ear, to the bug-man spraying, to the mask that frank carries,
and to the final scene where the birds (light) eat the bug (darkness).
Finally, we cannot dismiss the theme of family abuse, that is all over
this piece, along with a sort of Oedipus scenario.
---
:: House of Games - 1987 - USA - David Mamet ::.
A tale of the society's underside, with it deceptions and bending of
the rules. It can be seen as a sort of Dr.Mabuse twist.
---
:: The Banshees of Inisherin - 2022 - Ireland - Martin McDonagh ::.
Time passes quickly, and the sudden realization that we're at our end
might make us change our habits, and destroy our relationship. What
we've found was pertinent might not be the next day. This tale, with
its hidden message about the Irish civil war, captures the sentiment
of self-destruction and deep pain about life and togetherness. We're
assaulted with grandiose and picturesque frames of the almost empty
wilderness of the island, which reminds us of the loneliness and smallness
of the characters, that probably only have a minor place in this world,
with their mundane and "boring", so ever repeating lives.
